Again another day trip, and why not at £80 return for the pair of us?!

Travel

This was going to be a LONG day! Up at 3.30am, in the car by 4am to drive to Leeds Bradford airport. I’d previously looked for a street near the airport where we could park for free and found one – instant £30 saving and only 15-20 min walk. DEFINITELY do this again.

Flight was a whole 50mins and after landing (this time not even a handbag in tow) we headed to get the bus. DO NOT take the tourist bus – £12 return which seems cheap but you can get local bus for half that – only thing is you need exact change and it take 40mins instead of 20mins. Up to you. As soon as you get out of the airport door the buses are at your 2 o’clock. We waited 4mins for the bus whereas the city bus goes when it is full so could be waiting a bit longer. 

Places to visit/things to do

I had found a free walking tour – you just pay what you feel the tour was worth in gratuity after. ‘Sandemans’ city tour starts at City Hall. They recommend you arrive 15mins beforehand but 5mins would be fine. You do need to book in advance, but you can cancel/re-arrange if necessary. Patrick was our guide (at least one stereotype box ticked!) and he was great. He took us to Dublin Castle, Christchurch cathedral, then onto Temple bar. We had a break here for 15mins for people to grab a drink/food if they wanted. Last two things we saw were the Bank of Ireland (used to be the Irish Parliament) and Trinity College. A great fun tour which I’d recommend if you like a quick way to get a lot of information and culture into a short amount of time (2.5-3hrs).

I had booked us tickets to see the Book of Kells in Trinity College so finishing the tour there worked well. The Book is nice to see but it took Steve and I a total of 10-15mins to see it and do the Long Room which is more impressive in my opinion, so at €15 per person I’d give it a miss unless you really like museums.

As the weather was glorious and we were in need of a rest, we headed to St Stephens park and laid in the sun for a bit…falling asleep for about an hour! Great thing to do to have some down time which, like I said before, I don’t normally plan in time for, so this was lovely.

Food

A blogger said ‘Lemon Jelly’ was a great place for breakfast. I had a sun dried tomato, mozzarella cheese and pesto omelette with toast and a ‘Green Goodness’ smoothie and Steve had the full Irish breakfast with a coffee and fresh orange juice. Both were delicious! Can HIGHLY recommend!

We had asked Patrick (the tour guide) for recommendations for dinner and he had said O’Neils – not to be confused with the O’Neils chain in the UK. Massive pub with lots of little nooks and crannies. Ordering food is a bit weird, Steve went to order and was taking a while but I just thought there were a lot of people till he came back with two meals on school canteen style trays. The pub is basically a Toby carvery type place where the meals are already cooked and kept warm till you purchase them. The food was good though and VERY filling. Not sure if I’d eat here again but if you want something traditional and filling then it is a good eat.

For dessert we stopped at Offbeat Donut Co just opposite the No.16 bus stop we needed – I mean, would have been rude not to right?!

Final thoughts

If you are considering Dublin then it is a great (if long) day out but to do it justice I’d say 2-3 days with 1-2 days in Dublin getting in some lovely Irish music on an evening and a day trip to maybe somewhere like the Cliffs of Moher.